


First Name Basis

by soldiermom1973



Series: Aeryn/Courier Six [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:17:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldiermom1973/pseuds/soldiermom1973
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six had wondered what Boone's first name was.  She wasn't expecting to find out the way she did....</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Name Basis

**Author's Note:**

> I included a warning about graphic violence - what's in here may not be all that horrible, but I felt it best to put a warning on rather than leave it out and have someone get upset.

Six and Boone had only been traveling together for about a month when she agreed to clear out Quarry Junction for the workers in Sloan. He was Boone, former sniper for the NCR’s 1st Recon Sniper Battalion, 6’2” of solid muscle, good with his fists, better with his rifle, and a man of few words; she was Six, as in Courier Six - the sixth name on the list of couriers hired by Robert House to deliver a strange assortment of packages to the Strip. Her package had been a platinum poker chip. And carrying it had netted her two bullets in her head. She wasn’t quite ready to tell Boone what her name was. And the feeling was mutual.

Powder Gangers had made off with the dynamite the Sloan crew had been using to mine rocks in the quarry to be used for concrete. The resulting silence allowed a family of deathclaws to move in. Chomps Lewis, the quarry foreman, told her she was fucking crazy - that family included an alpha male AND female, both bigger, faster and more vicious than normal deathclaws. Six just shrugged. She’d picked up a nice .50 cal rifle and was a fair shot at a distance. She had no intention of going after them by running in, guns blazing. She’d planned on stealth and distance, on picking them off one at a time, from as far away as possible. She’d even gotten her hands on some explosive rounds, knowing she’d have a better chance of downing the creatures with those than standard, or even armor-piercing, rounds.

Boone was against it from the start “Six, this is fucking suicide,” he’d said. They had been together long enough that he should have known she wasn’t the kind of person to just stand by and do nothing. Not when she was fully capable of doing something - anything. So she told him he could just stay in Sloan and wait. That it might actually be better if he did because she didn’t want to take a chance of him giving her position away. That pissed him off and they argued for over an hour about whether or not he would go along. ED-E, the trusty little eyebot she’d saved from a fate of rust and decay in Johnson Nash’s shop, just hovered in the background, apparently taking it in.

Six finally caved and said, “If you’re coming along, you do this MY way. Got it?” Boone had grudgingly agreed. She told ED-E to stay put. “If we aren’t back in 2 hours, head back to Primm and help Mr. Nash. Ok?”

ED-E’s response was a series of seemingly angry beeps and he bounced up and down rapidly. Six had since learned that was his reaction when she told him to do something he didn’t want to do, but at the time, she just patted the top of his metal dome and said, “I just don’t want you coming after us and getting damaged yourself, ok? Please?”

She stepped back and smiled at her metallic friend, “Thanks, buddy. We’ll be ok.”

ED-E gave one more whistle and moved to where Chomps was standing.

“Do you have any idea how many there are?” Six asked Chomps.

“Nope. Probably safe to say that at this point there are at least 3 other adults besides the alphas. Figure on a couple of juveniles and probably some babies. And while the babies are very tiny compared to their parents, they can be just as deadly. Don’t let your guard down when you see them.”

Six nodded and she and Boone set off down the hill towards the quarry entrance. “I think you should stay at the entrance and catch any that might try to run out,” she said.

Boone smirked, “Are you serious? You plan on going in there by yourself?”

“Yes, actually, I do. I have a couple of StealthBoys. Chomps explained to me that there are several conveyor belts that are used to run the mined rock up to a crusher. I was planning on clearing a path, activating a StealthBoy, and sneaking my way up as high as I can get. From there, it’ll be easy pickin’s, especially with my explosive rounds.”

Boone grabbed her arm and forced her to stop, “That’s crazy,” he said. “Deathclaws aren’t stupid. What’s to stop them from coming up the conveyor after you?”

Six yanked her arm free, “The fact that they won’t see me.”

“That gadget won’t last forever. What’s your plan when it wears off?”

She shrugged, “I plan on being done by then.”

She turned on her heel and continued to the quarry entrance. Boone let out an exasperated sigh and followed her. They crouched down and carefully made their way closer to the quarry entrance. Six kept a close eye on her Pip-Boy and stopped suddenly when some red tick marks appeared, indicating a hostile presence was in front of them. Using hand signals she and Boone had worked out when they first started traveling together, she let him know that there were at least two hostiles ahead.

Six dropped to her stomach, supporting the barrel of her rifle on her left hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Boone take a similar position to her left. They each took aim and fired within a split second of each other. Six’s target stumbled and fell; Boone’s seemed to just shake it off and started heading towards their position. Six shifted her aim and squeezed off another round, finishing the job.

Six indicated to Boone that he should stay put as she started worming her way forward on her stomach. She stopped every few feet, looking through her scope and checking her Pip-Boy for activity. She finally caught a glimpse of a huge deathclaw, with horns about twice the length of those she and Boone had just killed and skin that was nearly black in color.

“Must be the alpha male,” she thought as she activated her StealthBoy. She crouched and carefully made her way towards the conveyor belt. She scrambled up as quickly as she could and surveyed the scene - as she squatted, facing back the way she came, the alpha male was to her left, along with another lesser deathclaw. A third was to her left, but on a ledge. To her right were two more, but she couldn’t get a clean shot at either of them. “I’ll have to check the view from the other belts,” she muttered. She was beginning to regret only having two StealthBoys - clearing the quarry looked like it might take at least 4 of them. “And I still haven’t found mommy, yet.”

Six decided she would really have to move quicker than she originally planned. She took a deep breath, aimed at the alpha male, and squeezed off a round. It exploded in the middle of the beast’s chest, but didn’t appear to do much damage. The noise from the explosion attracted the attention of several other deathclaws, who slowly made their way around to the base of the conveyor.

“Fuck,” Six muttered. She took aim at the center of the group and fired 3 successive rounds, successfully killing all the lesser deathclaws and severely wounding the alpha.

“Son of a bitch! Chomps wasn’t kidding!” she said to herself as she fired off one more round, finally killing the alpha male. Six knew she had very little time left on with her StealthBoy. She decided to head back to Sloan, let Chomps know the male was dead, and grab more supplies so she could come back and finish the job. She scurried down the conveyor, moving as fast as she dared to where she left Boone.

When she got back to the quarry entrance, she was horrified by what she found - there were two dead deathclaws at Boone’s feet. Boone was propped up against a rock, bleeding heavily from a wound in his torso.

“It took you long enough,” he growled when he saw the shimmer of Six’s cloaked figure approach.

“Holy shit, Boone! What happened??” she asked as her StealthBoy wore off.

“Well, Six, you failed to mention the pair of deathclaws that were around the corner,” he said, nodding in the direction behind her.

“Boone, they must have been out of range of my Pip-Boy. I swear - had I seen any other red marks, I wouldn’t have left you here alone.” She checked the device on her wrist again and was relieved that there didn’t seem to be any other hostile creatures around. She knelt by Boone and reached to lift the dressing he’d applied.

He stopped her hand, “You can make the bleeding worse.”

“Boone, I know my way around a wound. Please, let me have a look. I need to see what we have so I can try to treat it and get you back to town.”

He sighed and dropped his hand. Six gently pulled the material away from his stomach and winced - there were three wicked-looking gouges across his midsection. She could see a lot of meat. Had the wounds been much deeper, Boone could have been eviscerated.

“Fuck,” Six whispered as she pulled a Stimpak from her bag and injected Boone in the arm. She took off his sunglasses and beret so she could check his pupils.

“I would really like my beret back,” Boone said, his speech beginning to slur.

“Not now, Boone. Not now. I have some Med-X that I’m going to give you. Then I’m going to redress your stomach and get you hidden so I can go for help.”

Boone nodded weakly. Six prepped the needle and injected it into Boone’s arm. She hated to leave him but she didn’t have a choice. His wounds were pretty severe and she didn’t want to do more damage by moving him too far.

He closed his eyes as she applied a pressure dressing to his torso. She checked to make sure the bleeding was at least a little controlled, injected him with another Stimpak, and said, “This is going to hurt.”

She grabbed him by his collar and began dragging him back up the hill towards Sloan. It was slow going - his tall frame was mostly muscle and she kept having to stop and make sure he was still breathing. He had to have been in immense pain, but he kept his groans as quiet as possible.

When she got far enough away from the quarry, she propped Boone up along some rocks on the side of the road. She handed him her 10mm pistol and said, “You can’t handle a rifle. Use this and I’ll come running. I will be back with help. I promise.” She leaned over and kissed the top of his head before taking off sprinting up the hill.

Chomps and ED-E were still there, waiting. Six breathlessly said, “ED-E, I need you to go to Goodsprings and get Doc Mitchell. We need him here now. Chomps, please get a couple of men and give me a hand getting Boone back up here.”

ED-E didn’t hesitate - he took off for Goodsprings as fast as he could. “What’s happened?” Chomps asked.

“I don’t have time to explain. Just please, get about 3 other men around and meet me down there,” she said, pointing in the direction she’d left Boone. When Chomps turned to run into camp, Six sprinted back down the hill.

Boone was where she’d left him, but the pistol had fallen from his grip into the dust. “Oh, no,” Six said as she dropped beside him. She put her ear against his chest - there was still a heartbeat, but it was very weak. She pulled her pack off of her back and started looking for something else to give him to aid in the healing and ease his pain. She didn’t want to give him any more Med-X because people could get hooked on that stuff in a hurry. She gave him another Stimpak but was hoping she had something else a bit more helpful.

“Oh, Hallelujah!” she said when she’d found some healing poultice. She gently moved Boone so he was laying on his back, carefully removed the bandage she’d applied earlier, and began slathering the poultice over the wounds. Having nothing else to use to cover the damage, she pulled her shirt over her head and used it to re-dress the wound just as Chomps and his men came down the hill carrying a large, flat piece of lumber.

“Please be careful when you load him up. I think I’ve gotten the bleeding controlled, but any wrong move might start him gushing like a broken faucet,” she said to the men, who just stood there gaping at her.

“Really? My friend is laying here, bleeding to death, and you all act like you’ve never seen a woman in a bra before! Snap out of it!” she yelled.

Chomps, who’d been examining Boone himself, stood and smacked the nearest guy upside the head, “Come on, you guys. Now is not the time for this,” he snapped. The quarry workers carefully rolled Boone on his side, laid the lumber underneath him, and rolled him back. They carried him the rest of the way up the hill and into the barracks.

On the way, Six explained to Chomps what had happened - the alpha male was dead, along with at least 5 other adult deathclaws. She fully intended to go back to finish the job, but she needed to tend to Boone first.

“I understand,” he said as Boone was carefully laid on a bed. “Let’s get you a chair - you must be exhausted. Do you want me to bring you something to eat?”

Six pulled about 20 caps from her pocket, “I’m not hungry, but Boone will be pissed if he finds out I didn’t eat something. So if you’d just bring me something small - maybe a kebob.”

Chomps took her money and left the barracks. Six collapsed in a chair, holding Boone’s hand. “Help is on the way, Boone. I sent ED-E to Goodsprings. Hang in there, please,” she pleaded. She stroked the top of his head, wishing there was more she could do.

Chomps came back about 10 minutes later with some food, a bottle of water, and a shirt. “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

Six shook her head, “Just make sure Doc finds his way here when he gets into town. Thanks, Chomps. For the shirt and stuff.”

Chomps just smiled at her and walked out of the barracks.

About 2 hours later, the door opened and ED-E came in, followed closely by Doc Mitchell.

“Well, howdy there. Your funny little robot here told me you needed some help,” he said as he walked over to the bed.

“Told you? How?”

“He burned the words ‘Courier’ and ‘help’ into my wall with a laser and then started nudging me out of the door. I barely had time to grab my bag.”

He sat in the chair Six had vacated and looked at Boone. “So, what happened?”

Six told the doc what had happened, and what steps she’d taken so far.

“Healing poultice? Good choice,” he said as he lifted the bandages. “Hmmm. This is pretty severe, but I’ve dealt with worse.” He smiled at the Courier whose life he’d saved just a couple of months earlier. “This should be a piece of cake compared to digging those bullets out of your noggin.”

He stood up and got his bag, “Do you feel up to helping me stitch him back up?”

Six nodded. “Good,” Doc said, readying a syringe.

“What are you giving him?” she asked, the concern heavy in her voice.

“Just a mild anesthetic. If I don’t give him something, the pain might just be enough to wake him up. And I have a feeling he throws a mean left hook.” Doc Mitchell gently stuck the needle in Boone’s abdomen and set about removing the rest of the bandages so the wounds could be cleaned and stitched.

When the procedure was finished, Six and Doc went outside to clean up. “So, how long have you two been together?” he asked.

“Together? Oh, we aren’t a couple, Doc. I met Boone in Novac about a week after I left Goodsprings. We’ve been wandering around ever since.”

Doc nodded thoughtfully, “You know, I don’t mean to pry, but it’s been my experience that when you spend a lot of time with someone like that, well, you don’t tend to stay as friends for very long.” He leaned against a building, studying her thoughtfully.

Six met Doc’s gaze evenly. She would admit to thinking Boone was incredibly sexy and she wanted to do unspeakable things to him, but that was lust, not love, like the good doctor was hinting at. But this, today... well, maybe there was something there beyond friendship.

“Will you be sticking around?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. I have a feeling you can manage just fine. He needs to stay off of his feet for at least a week. And I mean completely off of his feet. If he needs to go to the bathroom, he can roll over and go in a bottle or something. Change his dressing at least twice a day. Don’t let it get wet. If you have any more of that healing poultice, use it liberally. I’ll come back in 2 or 3 days to check on him. If he develops a fever, send your little robot to get me.” The tone of his voice turned more serious, “He’s lost an awful lot of blood, you know. He really needs to rest as much as possible.”

Six nodded. Doc wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug. “He’ll pull through. You’ll see.” He picked up his bag and walked out.

Six sat back down in the chair by Boone’s bed. His breathing was shallow but regular. It took an awful lot of stitches to close him up. Six was afraid the doc was going to run out of thread. She held his hand until it was time to change his dressings. Chomps would bring her food, which she would just pick at and barely eat.

Doc Mitchell stopped by three days later to see how he was mending. “How has he been?” he asked.

“In and out of consciousness. He only wakes for a few seconds then passes back out.”

Doc removed the dressings and whistled, “Wow. That looks great. You’ve been doing a good job.” He pulled some clean bandages from his bag and began redressing the wound.

“Doc, I’m concerned. If he’s healing nicely, then why won’t he wake up?”

“Well, you have to understand, the body really is a fragile thing. When it’s gone through the kind of trauma your friend here did, rest is the best thing. And while he’s out, he isn’t feeling any pain. It’s only been 3 days. If the doesn’t wake up in another two, then I’ll be concerned.”

He gave her arm a reassuring squeeze and continued his work. Six sighed and sat back in her chair. Doc stopped and looked at her, “When was the last time YOU slept?” he asked.

Six shrugged, “I don’t know. I doze off here and there, but I want to be here when Boone wakes up. I want to be sure he knows I’m still here.”

Doc nodded in understanding, “That’s very noble of you. But if you don’t sleep, you’ll be less effective in taking care of your friend here. If you like, I can give you something to help you sleep.”

She politely declined. Those few times she did manage to sleep, all she could see was Boone, bloodied and broken. “Ok. There really isn’t any more I can do. Your friend has to fight it out now.”

Doc closed his bag and left, reminding Six that if she needed him to just send “that quirky little robot friend of yours.”

After he’d left, Six leaned over and whispered in Boone’s ear, “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but if you pull through this, I will tell you my name.” She then laid her head on Boone’s chest, the rhythm of his heartbeat lulling her into a fitful sleep.

She woke when she felt someone nudging her head. “Six,” Boone rasped, “I’m parched.”

She quickly sat up, “Shit, I’m sorry Boone. Here,” she said, reaching into her pack and pulling out a bottle of water. He tried sitting up, wincing as he did so.

“Boone, please don’t. You’ll pull your stitches. And believe me, there are a lot of them.” Six helped him take a drink, “Not too much and not so fast. You’ll make yourself sick,” she said.

Boone rolled his eyes at her. “How long was I out?” he asked.

“Almost 4 days. Do you remember what happened?”

“Vividly. And painfully.” Boone moved to start removing the bandages and Six smacked his hands.

“You can look at it when I change those again. Which won’t be until later.”

“I have to piss,” he said and tried again to stand.

Six firmly put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back onto the bed, “Doc Mitchell said you are not to move from that bed for at least another 3 days.” She handed him an empty bottle and said, “Go in this.”

“Can I have some privacy?” he growled.

Six sighed and turned around, “You know, I’ve seen just about everything on you. Notice you don’t smell like death? That’s because I made sure you were bathed.”

She heard Boone put the cap back on the bottle, “Nearly everything, huh?”

When she turned around, he was grinning at her. Her heart skipped a beat, “Holy shit. You smiled and your face didn’t crack and fall off.”

That actually made him laugh. And promptly wince. “Well, what you said was funny. And I have a feeling you were pretty much camped out in that chair the entire time.”

Six shrugged, “It was my fault.” She sat down and tried taking his hand, but he pulled away.

“Six, I’ve told you before - I don’t like to be touched,’ he admonished.

Six shrugged, “You didn’t seem to mind for the past few days.”

“Yeah, well, I could say you took advantage.”

“True. So, are you hungry? Doc doesn’t want you going overboard, but I can probably see if Jas has some kind of soup in the mess hall.”

“Soup doesn’t sound too bad,” he said.

“Ok, I’ll get you something. Just promise me you’ll stay put and you won’t mess with that bandage.”

“Fine by me,” he said.

Six ran from the barracks to the mess hall. Sure enough, Jas was making some molerat stew and skimmed off some of the broth and put it in a coffee mug. “Here ya go,” she said, refusing payment. “It’s a little broth. Just please bring the mug back.”

She trotted back to the barracks, careful not to spill any of Boone’s dinner. She opened the door to see Boone standing unsteadily, his back to the door.

“Boone!” she yelled. “You promised you’d keep your ass in that damn bed!”

“My ass was getting numb. Standing was the only way I could think of to get the feeling back.”

“I swear, if you don’t plant your ass back in that bed, I’ll do a worse number on you than those deathclaws!”

Boone rolled his eyes, “Yes, mother,” he said. He gingerly bent over and sat on the bed, carefully swinging his legs up and under the covers. “There. Happy?”

“No. You shouldn’t have gotten out of that bed! What if you pulled some stitches out?” Six set the mug of broth on a footlocker and set about undoing the bandages so she could make sure he didn’t pull his wound open.

Boone winced as she removed the bandages. They snagged and pulled just a tiny bit on the scabs and threads. When his wound was finally exposed, Boone whistled. “Wow. That’s going to leave one hell of a scar.”

“Yes, it is. I’m just glad Doc was able to get you patched up.” Six started slathering more healing poultice on the mending flesh. “You have no idea how lucky you are, Boone. You were practically gutted. You lost a lot of blood. And by some miracle, you didn’t get an infection.”

She finished her work, picked the mug up, and handed it to Boone. “I don’t want to hear about it if that’s cold. If you had kept your ass in that bed, you’d have been able to drink it sooner.”

Six sat and watched him drink his broth. When he finished, he handed her the mug and said, “Thanks, Six.”

She took the mug with her left hand and extended her right. “Aeryn. My name is Aeryn.”

Boone raised an eyebrow and hesitated just a second before accepting her handshake. “Craig. You can call me Craig.”


End file.
